The CI robot lab at the VU has different robots: Kilobots, E-pucks, Thymio II robots and our own 3D printed robots.

The Thymio II robots are extended with a Raspberry Pi, camera, WiFi dongle, external battery and a gripper to perform foraging tasks.

Currently, we are implementing the NEAT algorithm to learn obstacle avoidance, phototaxis and foraging tasks. Link to code on github

For our own 3D printed robots, gait learning algorithms are developed to enable robots with different morphologies to walk. The long-term goal is to build an evolutionary robotic ecosystem where robots communicate and reproduce.

Whois

My name Jacqueline Heinerman, 2nd year PhD student in the field of Evolutionary Robotics at the VU University in Amsterdam. Evolutionary Robotics aims to evolve the controllers, the morphologies, or both, for real and/or simulated autonomous robots with use of Evolutionary Algorithms.